From Tragedy to Triumph: Principled Solutions for Rebuilding Lives and Communities

As Congress and the
nation consider how to rebuild shattered lives and destroyed
neighborhoods and businesses after the Katrina disaster, it is
important that the need to take action swiftly does not lead to
steps that cause dollars to be used inefficiently or to unwise
decisions that frustrate rather than achieve long-term success.
This makes it imperative that Congress keep the following
guidelines firmly in mind.

The federal government
should provide support and assistance only in those situations that
are beyond the capabilities of state and local governments and the
private sector. State and local governments must retain their
primary role as first responders to disasters. The federal
government should avoid federal­izing state and local first
response agencies and activities.

Federal financial aid,
when necessary, should be provided in a manner that promotes
accountability, flexibility, and creativity. In general, tools such
as tax credits and voucher programs, which allow indi­viduals
and families to direct funds, should be utilized to encourage
private-sector innovation and sen­sitivity to individual needs
and preferences.

Consistent with genuine health and safety
needs, red tape should be reduced or eliminated to speed up
private-sector investment and initiative in the rebuilding of
facilities and the restoration of businesses. Regulations that are
barriers to putting people back to work should be suspended or, at
a minimum, streamlined.

Congress should reorder
its spending priorities, not just add new money while other money
is being wasted. Now is the time to shift resources to their most
important uses and away from lower-priority uses to use taxpayer
dollars more effectively. It is critical that America focus on
building capabilities for responding to a catastrophic disaster,
not on catering to the wish lists of cities, parishes or counties,
states, and stakeholders.

Private entrepreneurial
activity and vision, not bureaucratic government, must be the
engine to rebuild. New approaches to public policy issues such as
enhanced choice in public school education should be the norm, not
the exception. New Orleans and other ravaged cities will look
different a decade from now, even though they will retain their
individual essence. The critical need now is to encourage
inves­tors and entrepreneurs to seek new opportunities within
these cities. Bureaucrats cannot do that. The key is to encourage
private-sector creativity-for example, by declaring New Orleans and
other severely damaged areas "Opportunity Zones" in which capital
gains tax on investments is eliminated and regu­lations
eliminated or simplified.

Funding from the
federal government for homeland security and disaster response and
relief activities should focus on national priorities, better
regional coordination and communication, and capitalizing federal
assets.

Catastrophic disasters
will require a large-scale and rapid military response that only
the National Guard can provide. The National Guard needs to be
restructured to make it both more effective and quicker to take
action.

Recommendations for
Rebuilding Lives and Communities

Responding to natural
disasters involves two overlapping phases. The first is to get
people out of danger and give them the immediate help they need.
That requires both public and private organizations to slash red
tape that impedes action. It also requires government to change
spending priorities, shifting money from low-priority uses to more
urgent needs. The second phase is to create the best possible
conditions for rebuilding lives and communi­ties, recognizing
that many will look very different in the future as people and
communities respond and adapt. The key to making this phase
successful is to encourage creative and rapid private investment
through incentives and reduced regulation, and to channel long-term
education, health, and other assistance directly to the people and
areas affected so that they can control their future.

Redirecting Federal
Spending

Last year, as a
precursor to Katrina, several hurricanes in the Southeast, most
notably Ivan, damaged communi­ties and vital infrastructure.
Though none brought nearly the level of devastation wrought by
Katrina, Congress pro­vided emergency relief to the tens of
thousands of people seeking to rebuild their lives. But Members of
Congress did not stop with true unforeseen emergencies. They also
passed funding for a myriad of other projects such as $800 million
to NASA for the Hubble Space Telescope and flight program
activities, the U.S. contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
dairy subsidies, and agricultural assistance. Unlike spending for
other emergencies such as the Northridge earthquake and Oklahoma
City bombing in 1995, however, this spending was not offset by
reductions elsewhere, so Congress quickly broke its budget
agreement.

This illustrates why
federal spending has increased 33 percent since 2001-about $22,000
per household. The real budget problems of Social Security,
Medicare, and Medicaid are projected to push that to $36,000 by
2050- an after-inflation increase of 65 percent. While emergency
funding is necessary for response and rebuilding after Katrina,
Congress should end its habits of funding every conceivable
spending initiative, special-interest tax credit, and pork-barrel
project and instead set budget priorities, make trade-offs, and, in
so doing, eliminate any entitle­ment expectations for disaster
relief.

Reserve all emergency
funding strictly to provide relief for immediate victims of the
immense destruc­tion and its aftermath. There must be no
"mission creep." This spending should be offset by reductions in
other spending, just as Congress did for the California earthquake
and the Oklahoma City bombing.

Rather than have
rebuilding efforts across the Gulf controlled or directed by
bureaucrats and hampered by end­less restrictions and
litigation, Congress and state and local governments should
eliminate or reduce the regulatory burden and allow communities to
decide for themselves how best to rebuild. To that end:

Declare New Orleans and
other affected areas "Opportunity Zones." For these zones, the
President should direct an Emergency Board, drawn from federal,
state, and local agencies and the private sector, to identify
regulations at all levels that impede recovery and should propose
temporary suspension or modification of these rules. Agencies
should fast track those recommendations, and Congress, where
necessary, should enact legislation where a legislative waiver is
required. At the state level, the governor of California used such
emergency powers given to him to suspend regulations-even
statutes-to cut highway reconstruction time after the 1994
Northridge earthquake from an estimated two years to just over two
months.

Suspend Davis-Bacon.
The President should be applauded for suspending Davis-Bacon
requirements for affected areas, as he is empowered to do. Previous
Presidents have also seen fit to do so, most recently George H. W.
Bush after Hurricane Andrew, as well as Richard Nixon and Franklin
Roosevelt. This would significantly reduce the cost of
reconstruction and provide more opportunities for displaced
Americans who are without jobs to work on federal projects to
restore their neighborhoods.

Repeal or waive
restrictive environmental regulations that hamper rebuilding a
broad array of infrastruc­ture from refineries to roads and
stadiums. Congress should consider substantial changes in
environ­mental laws such as the National Environmental Policy
Act (NEPA) and the Clean Water Act that have contributed to
Katrina's damage. NEPA, originally designed to require
environmental impact assess­ments for projects involving the
federal government, has morphed into an all-purpose delaying
tactic. Environmental organizations have used NEPA lawsuits to
block many types of projects, including levee improvements that
might have prevented the flooding of New Orleans. The same is true
of the Clean Water Act and its regulations ostensibly designed to
preserve wetlands. As regards flood prevention, these laws have
been interpreted in ways that do far more harm than good, and
changes are absolutely necessary.

Suspend financial
regulations that impede the ability of individuals and businesses
affected by Katrina to obtain access to their resources.
Regulations that affect both the victims of Hurricane Katrina and
financial institutions in that area need to be temporarily relaxed
to allow people to rebuild their lives. Financial institutions of
all types need to be encouraged to allow customers access to their
money by reducing or eliminating fees, early withdrawal penalties,
restrictions on cashing insurance or out-of-state checks, and daily
cash limits at ATMs.

Banks and other
financial institutions also need to be given the ability to
immediately shift branch loca­tions, open new branches, and
close damaged ones without the usual paperwork required by
financial regulators.

Other types of
businesses need temporary extensions or even exemptions from
paperwork and disclo­sure requirements required by securities
laws, pension insurers, or other federal and state agencies. For
the most part, regulators already have the ability to suspend
certain regulations in areas hit by natural disasters. The Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve System, Comptroller
of the Cur­rency, Office of Thrift Supervision, and National
Credit Administration, for example, are granting finan­cial
institutions and others the ability to meet their customers' needs
in a time of crisis without worrying that they will be
penalized.

Improving Access to
Affordable Energy

Under any set of
circumstances, Hurricane Katrina would have had a noticeable impact
at the pump. However, by hitting America's single largest oil and
refining region at a time of already tight supplies and high
prices, the effects have been amplified. Of course, weather-induced
damage to energy infrastructure is unavoidable, but Katrina's
impact on oil and refined products did not have to be so severe,
and there are lessons to be learned for the energy debate to
come.

Putting aside for a
moment the far more important human toll, from an energy
standpoint, Katrina hit in the worst possible place. With
approximately 25 percent of the nation's oil production and 16
percent of refining capac­ity located in the Gulf region, the
hurricane's impact will be felt nationally at least for a month or
two, and quite pos­sibly longer. But both these percentages
could have and should have been lower. To improve the nation's
access to energy supplies:

Waive or repeal Clean
Air Act (CAA) regulations that hamper refinery rebuilding and
expansion. Even under the best of circumstances, America's refining
capacity is barely adequate to provide sufficient gas­oline and
diesel fuel. Katrina's damage to several Louisiana refineries has
underscored those vulnerabil­ities. The impact on fuel supplies
and prices would have been smaller, shorter in duration, and more
localized had more refining capacity existed throughout the nation.
Due in part to costly CAA regula­tions, no new refinery has
been built in the U.S. since 1976, and expansions at existing
refineries have not occurred fast enough to create sufficient spare
capacity.

Among the rules
Congress should change are the tight Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) dead­lines for implementing the new National
Ambient Air Quality Standard for smog, which limits refinery
expansions in many key areas. Congress should also streamline the
extremely cumbersome New Source Review permitting process, which
delays or prevents refinery expansions.

Waive or repeal
gasoline formulation requirements under the Clean Air Act so as to
allow gasoline mar­kets to work more flexibly and efficiently
and reduce costs to the American consumer. Environmental
regulations have led to a complex patchwork of fuel regulations
that raise production costs and create logistical problems because
gasoline that is suitable for one market may not be usable in
another. The EPA has temporarily waived several of these rules to
ease the immediate shortages and high prices, and Congress should
consider making permanent changes.

Increase the production
of oil in the United States. The western Gulf of Mexico region
ravaged by Kat­rina stands out not as the only offshore area
with oil, but as the only offshore area that does not face severe
federal limits on drilling. There is oil in the Pacific, Atlantic,
and eastern Gulf, but these areas are subject to federal moratoria
restricting drilling. Alaska also has significant oil reserves,
both on and off­shore, but portions of them, including the
estimated 10 billion barrels located on a small part of the
Arc­tic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), are currently subject
to restrictions as well. Congress should lift those restrictions,
thereby enhancing the overall supply and reducing the level of
vulnerability should any one area suffer a natural
disaster.

Rebuilding
Infrastructure

Among the many
challenges confronting New Orleans, Biloxi, and the other damaged
communities along the Gulf Coast will be the repair and
reconstruction of the public infrastructure that serves the
citizens and the economy of the region. As the water recedes and
the debris is cleared, it is certain that the roads and bridges,
schools and gov­ernment offices, public libraries and health
clinics, buses and trolleys, water and sewage systems, and
community colleges and sports facilities will be found to have been
destroyed or damaged to some degree and to be in need of
significant reconstruction or replacement. While the traditional
response would be to fund their reconstruction or replacement by
means of government spending and borrowing, innovations in
infrastructure funding recently implemented in other states
reveal that the private sector has the capability and interest to
contribute massive amounts of money for public
infrastructure.

Rebuild bridges,
schools, water, and sanitation in partnership with the private
sector, which will vastly reduce the costs and time required for
such projects. Where states may need enabling legislation, they
should be urged to enact such legislation immediately.

Rescind at least half
of the more than 6,000 earmarked highway projects in the recent
highway legisla­tion and use the funds instead to rebuild
higher-priority infrastructure projects destroyed by
Katrina.

Changing Taxes to Spur
Investment

Some will argue that
the way to rebuild the devastated economy of the Gulf Coast is for
the government to mobi­lize public and private capital in a
plan to establish or revive businesses. That industrial policy
vision of redevelop­ment is not the solution.

Bureaucratic planning
will frustrate, not enhance, creativity and the search for new
types of enterprise that are adapted to the post-hurricane
conditions. The way to encourage Americans to invest in the
affected areas and mobi­lize capital in the most
entrepreneurial and efficient way is to reduce tax barriers to
investment in the stricken area. To be sure, such barriers should
be reduced generally around the country to spur growth; but given
the goal of get­ting the Gulf Coast quickly back on its feet,
Congress should enact short-term but deep tax incentives to
encourage investors to focus on the area. Congress
should:

Streamline or suspend
parts of the federal tax code in the declared Opportunity Zones in
order to pro­mote rapid reconstruction and redevelopment.
Specifically, within these areas, which should be desig­nated
for five years, permanently eliminate the capital gains tax on all
new investment made during the life of the zone.

Within the zones,
eliminate the tax depreciation lives of new capital equipment and
facilities and "old capital" in order to reduce the cost to firms
of purchasing new and more productive equipment and structures. If
Congress embraces full expensing of new capital, it only makes
sense that old capital that still must comply with tax depreciation
rules (which often force the owners of capital equipment to keep
outmoded equipment in place for decades) should not be
disadvantaged.

Giving Victims Relief
from the IRS

Victims of the disaster
need both time to put their lives back in order and breathing room
to deal with their financial losses. They do not need to be
hounded by the IRS. Just as Congress enacted special provisions to
cushion the financial burden facing victims of the September 11,
2001, attack, so it should for the victims of Katrina.
Spe­cifically, the government should:

Repeal the federal
death (estate) tax and immediately exempt Katrina victims from
paying death taxes. After September 11, Congress enacted
legislation to increase the exempt amount for families of victims
to $8.5 million and delayed their death tax liability for two
years. Repealing death taxes also reduces the cost of
capital.

Postpone payment of
2004 and 2005 individual and business income taxes for Katrina's
victims. The hurricane has left hundreds of thousands of taxpayers
without gainful employment. Congress should not further burden
these people with past-due tax bills for their pre-Katrina
income.

Waive penalties for
withdrawals from tax-advantaged savings such as IRAs and 401(k)
plans for Kat­rina's victims, as Congress did for the victims
of the September 11 attack.

Promoting Permanent
Health Care Coverage

Many evacuees need
emergency medical help, and most need a range of health services.
Urgent services should be given through whatever sources are
available and, beyond reasonable volunteer services, reimbursed
through emergency funds that have been authorized by Congress. Even
where services are available, federal privacy laws mean that
doctors and hospitals cannot legally obtain prompt access to needed
medical records and patient infor­mation. Moreover, even when
the immediate medical needs have been addressed, the goal should be
to restore long-term coverage for those who have lost
employment-based coverage and to provide assistance to evacuees to
afford adequate coverage that they can keep when they move back to
their homes or move to other areas to rebuild their lives. The key
to that is to give them the same tax breaks and other subsidies
that apply to employment-based plans for coverage through
organizations that they trust and that are close to them. To
address these short-term and long-term needs:

Amend or suspend
regulations governing medical privacy rules under the federal
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to make
it much simpler for insurance companies, hospitals, and doctors to
release medical information to medical personnel treating
evacuees.

Give displaced families
generous, refundable tax credits for the purchase of the kind of
health insur­ance that best meets their personal needs. Such
credits are, in effect, vouchers that can be signed over to health
plans in return for portable coverage that stays with the family
wherever they move or work.

Amend tax laws and
regulations so that families obtaining health plans sponsored by
charitable agencies and other organizations get the same tax relief
they would receive for insurance obtained through an employer. This
should include religious or faith-based plans, regardless of where
these health plans are domiciled. The same change should apply for
plans organized through other trusted organizations, such as
unions, farm bureaus, or school systems.

Increase access to
insurance coverage by allowing displaced families to enroll in the
insurance plan of their choice either at the state unemployment
office or at a designated disaster relief office. Channel
refundable tax credits and other assistance to pay for coverage
through these offices.

Create Emergency
Medical Accounts financed with federal contributions combined with
a debit card for direct payment for health care. Beyond an initial
federal contribution, the accounts could also receive Medicaid or
Medicare funds, S-CHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program)
monies, or state emergency funding, as well as tax-free
contributions from employers and former employers, charitable
contributions from charitable agencies, and contributions from
family and friends. The accounts could be used to pay for current
insurance premiums, co-payments, COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget
Reconciliation Act) coverage, and medical services.

Providing
Education

In the wake of the
hurricane, schoolchildren in affected areas have significant
opportunities for a brighter edu­cational future. Public
education in New Orleans, for example, has not adequately served
the needs of all children: 65 percent of New Orleans schools failed
to make the state's performance standard this year, compared to 11
percent of schools statewide. In Orleans Parish, 76 percent of
students come from economically disadvantaged households,
diminishing their options for alternatives to inadequate public
schools.

With schools destroyed
and students stranded across several states, federal, state, and
local authorities should allow for greater funding flexibility so
that students will have access to quality education during their
displacement. Over the longer term, the federal government should
foster a tax and regulatory climate that will lead to renewal in
Gulf Coast school districts.

Existing federal K-12
education formula funds (such as Title I) should be made portable
so that stu­dents may be able to attend public or private
schools in the area where they are forced to relocate. In that way,
instead of children becoming a financial burden on schools, money
follows them to those schools that help displaced children. Parents
should be given direct control over Title I funding, and
regulations governing the allowable use of how that money can be
spent should be expanded to include private school tuition and
after-school tutoring programs to allow parents to meet the
immediate needs for their children.

The states and
localities affected by the hurricane should also make education
funding transferable for the duration of the school
year.

School districts
affected by Katrina should be included as part of the declared
Opportunity Zones, where tax incentives are provided for education
service providers and for school construction to spark long-term
improvements. For example, business tax incentives could be offered
to education service provid­ers, such as charter school
operators or after-school tutoring companies, to encourage
redevelopment and reinvestment in affected areas. This would
promote quality educational options in all areas of the city,
including those that previously had none.

The federal government
should resist pouring resources into one-time school construction
projects. Any new funding associated with rebuilding educational
facilities should encourage state and local authori­ties to
implement creative public-private partnerships through leasing
arrangements. For example, edu­cation providers such as public
schools (as well as charter and private schools and after-school
tutoring companies) should be given opportunities to lease schools
from private contractors through leasing arrangements.

Encouraging Civil
Society and Faith-Based Outreach

Recovery and
reconstruction after Hurricane Katrina will require considerable
ingenuity and enterprising spirit. Many private organizations and
individuals have the necessary skills and flexibility to respond to
the wide variety of needs, both immediately and over the long term.
These include charitable and faith-based groups, as well as
uncer­tified or non-union individuals. Throughout the months
ahead, every effort should be made to eliminate barriers that would
prevent all capable groups and individuals from assisting victims
of the hurricane in every way possible.

Improving National
Response

Much has been done to
improve homeland security against terrorist attacks in the years
since September 11, 2001. It would be a mistake to judge that
improved preparedness by the standard of the response to Hurricane
Katrina. It is, however, true that the homeland security grant
system and the billions given to state and local governments and to
the private sector have not improved the nation's capacity to
respond to catastrophic disasters like Hurricane Katrina. This has
become only too clear in the past two weeks. In most disasters,
even the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, local
resources handle things in the first hours and days until national
resources, if absolutely necessary, can be requested, marshaled,
and rushed to the scene. Getting them there, however, is a huge
logistical challenge and usually takes days. Catastrophic disasters
are completely different in character from other emergencies and
require a different immediate response. State and local resources
are overwhelmed from the onset, as they were along the stricken
Gulf Coast. The Administration therefore needs the authority and
organization to build an effective national response system that
can be quickly activated for such devastating disasters.

Improving the Nation's
Capacity to Respond to
Catastrophic Disasters like Hurricane Katrina

State and local
resources are exhausted from the onset of a catastrophic disaster.
Since state and local govern­ments cannot respond in such
extreme events, providing relief efforts is a federal
responsibility. National resources have to show up in hours, not
days, in unprecedented amounts, regardless of the difficulties. The
United States, however, lacks the means and capabilities to do
this. Even years after 9/11, we have only begun to build the system
we need. In part, this is because that is how Congress, states, and
cities wanted it: All insisted on grants that doled out money with
scant regard to national priorities. Katrina shows why that
approach is wrong. All of the fire stations in New Orleans have
been under water, as was much of the equipment bought with federal
dollars. Only a national system-capable of mustering the whole
nation-can respond to catastrophic disasters.

Congress should
establish funding requirements for first responders under the State
Homeland Security Grant Program, the Urban Area Security
Initiative, and the Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention
Pro­gram. (H.R. 1544, the Faster and Smarter Funding First
Responders Act, is one example of how this might be
accomplished.)

Most disasters,
including terrorist attacks, can be handled by emergency
responders. Only catastrophic disas­ters-events that overwhelm
the capacity of state and local governments-require a large-scale
military response. Assigning this mission to the military makes
sense. The Pentagon could use response forces for tasks directly
related to its primary warfighting jobs, such as theater support to
civilian governments during a conflict, counterinsurgency missions,
and postwar occupation, as well as homeland security. These forces
would mostly be National Guard sol­diers. The National Guard
force needs to be large enough to maintain some units on active
duty at all times for rapid response in catastrophic events like
Katrina, as well as sufficient to support missions at home and
abroad.

The Defense Department
should therefore restructure a significant portion of the National
Guard into an effec­tive response force.

The Defense
Department's Quadrennial Defense Review, in coordination with the
Department of Home­land security, should be used to determine
the precise number of the forces and types that are required and to
recommend how they can be established by converting the existing
Cold War force structure. The Pentagon should emphasize components
to address medical, critical infrastructure, and security issues in
a catastrophic response.

Strengthening FEMA and
the Department of Homeland Security

The organization of the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as established by Congress
fragmented the preparedness and response missions among several
agencies and offices. In July 2005, new Homeland Security
Sec­retary Michael Chertoff announced the results of his
"Second Stage Review" of the department's organization and
missions. He proposed consolidating preparedness activities under
an Under Secretary, strengthening the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA), and making it an independent agency of the
department, eliminating a level of bureaucracy and focusing FEMA
squarely on planning and coordinating the national (not just
federal) response to disasters. Hurricane Katrina struck before his
reforms could be implemented, and the result was a lack of
communication and coordination among state, local, and national
responders.

Congress should support
full implementation of Secretary Chertoff's Second Stage Review.
These changes will allow FEMA to focus on emergency and
catastrophic response without detriment to pre­paredness. They
will also enhance the department's ability to conduct preparedness
planning.

Improving Information
Sharing and Coordination

The Homeland Security
Act of 2002 required the DHS to propose a regional framework but
provided no guidance on how to implement the system or its purpose.
The department failed to meet the one-year timeline for developing
a plan and has yet to announce a regional framework. This effort
should be a top priority because such an organization could have
contributed significantly to improving coordination for
catastrophic disasters.

The Department of
Homeland Security should create a regional framework with the
primary aims of enhancing information sharing and other
coordination among the states, the private sector, and the
headquarters in Washington.

The offices in this
framework should be led by political appointees who enjoy
sufficient clout to gain ready access to local leaders. Ideally,
these individuals would include former politicians, police chiefs,
and other people who have some background in both homeland security
issues and their geographic areas of responsibility.

The priority of this
network should be to support the flow of information and coordinate
training, exer­cises, and professional development for state
and local governments and the private sector in respond­ing to
catastrophic disaster.

Modernizing the U.S.
Coast Guard

During the response to
Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Coast Guard (part of the Department of
Homeland Security) proved why it is one of the nation's most
valuable assets. Coast Guardsmen, under the most harrowing
conditions, rescued over 22,000 people and provided essential and
immediate major assistance to communities all along the Gulf Coast.
In fact, since 9/11 the service has played an increasingly
prominent role in domestic security. Yet its equipment is aging
rapidly and becoming unsafe. The Integrated Deepwater Program, the
Coast Guard's modern­ization program, has been chronically
underfunded. Indeed, the House has proposed to cut over $200
million from its proposed FY 2006 budget.

To respond adequately
to catastrophic incidents, the federal government needs to spend
its money where it can get the most effective return on investment.
The biggest bang in maritime security is spending money on Coast
Guard assets that can prevent terrorist acts and that will be truly
useful in responding to disasters, whether natural or man-made.
This means that funding for the Coast Guard's Deepwater
modernization program must be a national priority. Congress
therefore should:

Fully fund the Coast
Guard's funding request for FY 2006.

Increase annual funding
for the Deepwater Program to $1.5 billion per year.

Improving Public
Preparedness and Personal Responsibility

In comparison to the
devastation of the tsunami in Southeast Asia, the U.S. capacity to
save lives in the aftermath of Katrina proved unparalleled. This
did not just happen. It resulted from the decisions of government
leaders, vol­unteer groups, private-sector initiatives, and the
selfless actions of communities and individuals. All are vital
com­ponents of a national response. Yet more people could have
been saved if individuals and communities had met their basic civic
responsibilities. America does not have a culture of
preparedness.

The Department of
Homeland Security's current approach to enhancing public
preparedness is deeply flawed. Instead of trying to run an
ineffective advertising campaign from Washington, the DHS needs to
refocus its programs to empower state and local governments to
create effective "bottom-up" preparedness from individuals and
commu­nities. Federal initiatives will never be as effective as
programs run by communities with the participation and
lead­ership of local citizens.

To ensure that the DHS
role in public preparedness, while it should not be large, is
effective and well-integrated with all other DHS preparedness,
mitigation, and outreach activities, all of these tasks should be
consolidated in one place within the department.

The DHS also should
help communities to develop a culture of preparedness by assisting
them in estab­lishing training programs for state and local
leaders.

Improving Medical
Response

Unlike many other
aspects of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the United States
was not (at least thus far) faced with a catastrophic medical
disaster. Several hundred thousand people were successfully
evacuated before the storm. While the death toll will still take
time to assess and the potential for epidemics still exists, in
terms of lives lost, the event could have been much worse. Next
time, the nation could be hit much harder.

Since 9/11, the federal
government has wasted billions of dollars on grants to hospitals
that will be of no help in responding to medical disasters where
the number of patients might be in the tens of thousands. As seen
in New Orleans, hospitals in a disaster area are quickly
overwhelmed. Meanwhile, disparate federal programs are not
addressing the challenge in an integrated and coherent manner. To
deal with this problem, therefore:

Implement a targeted
medical plan to deal with catastrophic disasters of national
proportion. The fed­eral government should focus on
capabilities such as mass decontamination and rapidly deployable
medical facilities.

"Tapping the Resources
and Creativity of the Private Sector to Rebuild New Orleans' Public
Infrastructure," Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D., WebMemo No. 837,
September 12, 2005, at
www.heritage.org/Research/GovernmentReform/
wm837.cfm

"Making the Sea Safer:
A National Agenda for Maritime Security and Counterterrorism,"
James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., and Alane Kochems, Special
ReportNo. 03, February 17,
2005, at www.heritage.org/Research/HomelandDefense/
sr03.cfm

"Beyond Duct Tape: The
Federal Government's Role in Public Preparedness," James Jay
Carafano, Ph.D., Executive Memorandum No. 971, June 3, 2005,
at
www.heritage.org/Research/HomelandDefense/em971.cfm

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As Congress and the nation work to rebuild shattered lives anddestroyed neighborhoods and businesses after the Katrina disaster,the need to take action swiftly must not lead to steps that causedollars to be used inefficiently or to unwise decisions thatfrustrate long-term success. In addition, because the homelandsecurity grant system and the billions given to state and localgovernments and to the private sector have not improved thenation's capacity to respond to catastrophic disasters, theAdministration needs the authority and organization to build aneffective national response system that can be quickly activatedfor such devastating disasters.

Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) says it's "a great way to start the day for any conservative who wants to get America back on track."

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